MORE than 100 deaths resulting from incidents at Scottish hospitals are to be revealed in a televised investigation.

BBC Scotland said their programme, How Safe Is Your Hospital?, will tell of 345 NHS reports from last year which were previously kept secret.

They include one case in which a person was blown up whilst being treated with oxygen therapy, patients dying or becoming ill when they were given the wrong doses of medication and supplies of drugs or emergency treatment not being available.

The documents show variations between health boards in the number of incidents that are reported and what types of investigations are conducted.

Differences in what each board considers to be "serious" are also apparent, with incident reports ranging from a nurse being injured whilst hanging Christmas decorations to a baby dying during labour and a surgeon removing a patient's healthy organ.

The programme also highlights that all of NHS Tayside's reports list "nearly identical" learning points.

All of the reports, which were obtained through freedom of information requests, will be posted online at bbc.co.uk/scotlandnews today.

The investigation also found that the NHS has paid out over £120million in compensation and legal expenses over the last three years in Scotland.

In two individual cases, NHS Lanarkshire paid out a total of over £6million, BBC Scotland said.

Jim Martin, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, has called for a national system for reporting serious incidents.

He told the programme: "I think one of the things that your (the BBC's) inquiries have highlighted is that across Scotland just now we're pretty confused about what we call things, what things mean and whether for example a critical incident review is a health and safety review, whether it's a review of something that's gone wrong surgically or in a GP's surgery or in a dental surgery.

"It's a confusing picture. I think if we had a simple national system it would be far easier to ask a simple question of the health service and get a clear statistical answer."

The Scottish Government said it has asked for an urgent review of incident reporting from Health Improvement Scotland (HIS), the body set up to support NHS Scotland and other healthcare providers deliver high quality and safe services.

BBC Scotland said that, in the programme, Robbie Pearson, director of Scrutiny and Assurance at HIS, admits they have no idea of the national picture, and that the officials will be visiting each health board from now until the end of next year.

A total of 22 complaints are made against the NHS every day and the numbers being upheld by the Public Services Ombudsman have increased.

Mr Martin said: "Last year we upheld something like 56 per cent of the complaints, which is a very worrying number particularly given that the year before the number was only 43 per cent.

"There seems to be an increase in the number of complaints not being resolved satisfactorily in health boards.

"Where I'm worried is that if the trend continues, it will dilute the confidence of the population.

"I can only assume that if we get the learning better, then that will save lives.

"At the moment, the bureaucracy seems from the outside to be the most important thing. In my view the learning should be the most important thing."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said a national framework for the management of adverse events is being put in place.

"Scotland is the first country in the world to implement a national patient safety programme across the whole healthcare system and has some of the safest hospitals in the world," she said.

"We need to support a culture of openness, trust and quality improvement so that we can make sure that lessons are learned from these events."

BBC Scotland Investigates: How Safe Is Your Hospital? airs on BBC One Scotland at 10.35pm tonight.